Harry Lime - "In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

The third man is brilliant however, cuckoo clocks were actually invented in Germany

Quote:

Laughing , i like that first quote a lot, ive never heard of harry lime thought, i'll have to look him up

EDIT: graeme greenes great and ive never seen the third man so ill have to look it up

Carol Reed and Graeme Greene worked together on three brilliant films however, Orson Welles wrote the cuckoo clock speech in its entirety. Many people believe Welles wrote or altered other parts of the script but this is not the case.

Apologies for being a pedant but theres two for the fact fans.

The three films that Reed and Greene worked on are all brilliant and well worth getting a copy of.

To get back on topic, i think the more important thing that Albarn was saying was about role models and aspirations rather than the x factor giving us dull music and dull tv. I couldn't really care less about how it makes the charts shite or how kids are listening to rubbish because that will always be the case and good music will still be out there.

The real problem is that kids are given really shit role models and really low aspirations. Half the young girls in this country aspire to be victoria beckham and regularly this leads to them getting spit roasted against their will by a couple of west brom players in a dingy hotel room.

Being dumb and getting your tits out seems to be a sure road to success for women while men are presented with some pretty stupid thuggish people to look up to.

I saw a lynx advert recently that discussed me, the ideas they give to young men about woman are down right wrong and abominable. I initially thought something should be done to stop things like this but then i thought fuck it, the arguments lost, nobody should think this is acceptable. There should be no need to legislate against that kind of machismo sexism, people should know it's wrong.

90 years ago woman couldnt vote and werent encouraged to work (if they were middle class), she should stay at home and see to her husbands needs, would you say that was a better or worse role model than ms beckham? also name me some good popular role models from the 1970's and 1980's? donnie osmond? george best?

popular role models have always been a bit shit havent they, cause there just ordinary people. If you look for your role models in heat magazine your not exactly going to find the cream of the crop, but who are you and I to say people shouldnt be allowed to do that if they wish, surely our society is big enough to accommodate people who like vacuous things and people who dont (and people who like both I guess as well)

The real problem is that kids are given really shit role models and really low aspirations. Half the young girls in this country aspire to be victoria beckham and regularly this leads to them getting spit roasted against their will by a couple of west brom players in a dingy hotel room.

I saw a lynx advert recently that discussed me, the ideas they give to young men about woman are down right wrong and abominable. I initially thought something should be done to stop things like this but then i thought fuck it, the arguments lost, nobody should think this is acceptable.

popular role models have always been a bit shit havent they, cause there just ordinary people. If you look for your role models in heat magazine your not exactly going to find the cream of the crop, but who are you and I to say people shouldnt be allowed to do that if they wish, surely our society is big enough to accommodate people who like vacuous things and people who dont (and people who like both I guess as well)

"There's an old adage "Never meet your heroes." It seems like fairly good advice to anyone who actually has heroes or, even worse, idols.
I suppose it's always been the same, but in today's celebrity obsessed culture it's possibly worse. There's such a press release bending of the truth, by celeb's P.A.s that invariably if you meet anyone famous they are more likely than not going to disapoint because in reality everyone has human failings. Even ones you read about.
It's a bit like when you realise your parents are just ordinary human beings too and don't get everything right after all.

Maybe that's why people idolise famous people? We want to have some sort of ideal to live up to. Suppose it used to be God and Jesus, now it's just David and Victoria. (Christian fundamentalists please take note, I'm not saying David and Victoria Beckham are God and Jesus, just pointing out the replacement of...oh it doesn't matter, just stop reading here; I'm bound to say something offensive later on too. There'd be a lot less problems in the world if people just said "Well, I don't agree with that point of view, so I'll just not get involved with it again. You know, like with newspapers. Daily Mail readers don't buy The Guardian and vice versa. Everyone's happy.)"

90 years ago woman couldnt vote and werent encouraged to work (if they were middle class), she should stay at home and see to her husbands needs, would you say that was a better or worse role model than ms beckham? also name me some good popular role models from the 1970's and 1980's? donnie osmond? george best?

The mass media wasn't such a massive unstoppable force in those days, you only had a couple of tv stations and the magazines weren't constantly reporting on how fat or how thin everyone is.

I know the world wasn't all flowers and bunny rabbits in the past but i think there has been a pretty clear shift in the media over the past ten years. I could be wrong though given that ten years ago i was only 15 and divided my time evenly between watching football, drinking on street corners and setting fire to lego men.

I saw a lynx advert recently that discussed me, the ideas they give to young men about woman are down right wrong and abominable. I initially thought something should be done to stop things like this but then i thought fuck it, the arguments lost, nobody should think this is acceptable.

Back to Harry Lime; he also features in the newest League of Extraordinary Gentlemen book - The Black Dossier, which is either a confused load of cobblers (what I thought the first time I read it) or one of Alan Moore's greatest, if a bit confusing, works (what I thought on the second read.)

It's unquestionably the latter to me. My mate Ally recommended it to me, and the artwork and dialogue are simply stunning in The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen. There's so much going on at all times that your brain gets no chance to rest, though it appears when you first read it that it's going to be Moore's most face-value work

A lot of The Third Man chat going on here. It really is wonderful. For fans of it, there's an Otto Preminger film called "Laura" that is well worth checking out, magnificent film noir

_________________Down to the bus
Into the town
Our poor boy
Can't get around